Experts

Leslie H. Gelb

Expertise

Bio

Dr. Leslie H. Gelb is among America's most prominent foreign policy experts. A Pulitzer Prize winner, former correspondent for the New York Times, and senior official in state and defense departments, he is currently president emeritus and board senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He served as president of the organization from 1993 to 2003.

Prior to his tenure as president of CFR, Dr. Gelb established a distinguished career at the New York Times, where he was a columnist from 1991 to 1993, deputy editorial page editor from 1986 to 1990, and editor of the op-ed page from 1988 to 1990. He was national security correspondent for the Times from 1981 to 1986, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1986. He was diplomatic correspondent at the Times from 1973 to 1977.

Dr. Gelb was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1980 to 1981, where he was a consultant to the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. From 1977 to 1979, he was an assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration, serving as director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, where he received the State Department's highest award: the Distinguished Honor Award. He was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from 1969 to 1973, during which time he was also a visiting professor at Georgetown University. He was director of Policy Planning and Arms Control for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense from 1967 to 1969, where he also served as director of the Pentagon Papers Project. While at the Defense Department, Dr. Gelb won the Pentagon's highest award, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

He was executive assistant to U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits from 1966 to 1967, and an assistant professor at Wesleyan University from 1964 to 1966.

Dr. Gelb currently serves on the Center for National Interest Board of Directors, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Board of Directors, the Diplomacy Center Foundation Board of Directors, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation Board of Advisors, and the Truman National Security Project Board of Advisors. He is a former trustee for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, trustee emeritus for Tufts University, and the former Chairman of the National Security Network Advisory Board. He formerly served on the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University Dean's Council, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University Board of Advisors, the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University Board of Overseers, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Advisory Board. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Gelb received his BA from Tufts University in 1959 and his MA in 1961 and PhD in 1964 from Harvard University. He is the author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (2009) and Anglo-American Relations, 1945–1950: Toward a Theory of Alliances (1988). He is also co-author of The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1980), which won him the American Political Science Association's Woodrow Wilson Award; Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy (1984), and Claiming the Heavens: The New York Times Complete Guide to the Star Wars Debate (1988). He is the recipient of an Emmy Award and an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for his work as a producer of ABC Nightline's Crisis Game.

Dr. Gelb, who resides in New York City, is married to Judith Cohen and is the father of three children. He was the recipient of the Father of the Year Award in 1993.

Campaign 2012

Leslie H. Gelb says Obama captured the political center at home on foreign policy – a feat for a Democrat – because he avoided costly mistakes abroad. He understood the limits of U.S. power, but not its strengths when encased in a good strategy, and thus failed to achieve solutions to big problems abroad.

CFR Events

General Meeting ⁄ New York

Lessons of Diplomacy: An Event in Memory of Richard C. Holbrooke

Speakers:

Christopher R. Hill, Dean, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver; Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and former Special Envoy to Kosovo, U.S. Department of State, Vali R. Nasr, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; Former Senior Adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State, Frank G. Wisner, International Affairs Adviser, Patton Boggs, LLP; Former Ambassador to Zambia, Philippines, Egypt, and India, and former Foreign Service Officer, Vietnam, U.S. Department of State

Presider:

Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Reflections on Citizen Revolt in the Middle East

Panelists:

Rima Afifi, Professor, Department of Health Behavior and Education, American University of Beirut, Rami Khouri, Director, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut, Karim Makdisi, Assistant Professor of Political Studies, American University of Beirut, Rami Zurayk, Professor of Land and Water Resources, American University of Beirut

Presider:

Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Introductory Speaker:

U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan: Report of a CFR-Sponsored Independent Task Force

Panelists:

James Dobbins, Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center, National Security Research Division, RAND Corporation; Member, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Robert Grenier, Chairman, ERG Partners; Member, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Daniel S. Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations; Director, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

A Conversation with Fouad Ajami

Speaker:

Fouad Ajami, Author, The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq; and M. Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Presider:

Global Security in the 21st Century: The Role of the U.S.

Speaker:

Michael Mandelbaum, Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and author, “The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-first Century”

Iraq: The War Debate

Presider:

Speakers:

William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard, Stephen M. Walt, Academic Dean and the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Max Boot, Olin Senior Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Conflict Prevention: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why?

Presider:

Major General William L. Nash, Senior Fellow and Director of The Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations

Speakers:

Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations, General John W. Vessey, USA (Ret.), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Chairman, Center for Preventive Action Advisory Committee, Council on Foreign Relations, David A. Hamburg, Author, No More Killing Fields: Preventing Deadly Conflict; Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychiatry, Joan and Stanford, Barnett R. Rubin, Author, Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action; Director of Studies, Center on International Cooperation, New York

Getting Saddam: A Debate

Presider:

Speakers:

Richard N. Perle, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy; Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Leon S. Fuerth, Former National Security Adviser to Vice President Al Gore; Shapiro Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University, The Elliott School of International Affairs

After the Attacks: Hart-Rudman Revisited, U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century

Presider:

Speakers:

Gary Hart, Co-Chairman of the Hart-Rudman Commission; Of Counsel, Coudert Brothers; former U.S. Senator, Colorado, Charles G. Boyd, General, U.S. Air Force (Ret.); Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in National Security and European Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations; Executive Director of the Hart-Rudman Commission

U.S. Policy Toward Cuba: Is It Time for a Change?

Presider:

Speakers:

Elliott Abrams, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Charles B. Rangel, U.S. House of Representatives (D-N.Y.)

Mock National Security Council Meeting on the U.S.-China Summit

Speakers:

Ellen L. Frost, Senior Fellow, Institute for International Economics, former Counselor to the USTR, The Honorable Winston Lord, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, John Deutch, Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former Director of Central Intelligence, George Stephanopoulos, Visiting Professor, Columbia University, former Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy, Thomas E. Donilon, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State

Expanding NATO: Will It Weaken the Alliance?

Presider:

Speakers:

Michael Mandelbaum, Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Director, Project on East-West Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Credit Suisse First Boston, former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, U.S. Department of State

U.S. Defense Priorities

Presider:

Speakers:

General John W. Vessey, USA (Ret.), General, US Army, (Ret.); former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff; Chair, Advisory Board, Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations, Alexander M. Haig, Former Secretary of State; Former Chief of Staff at the White House; Former Supreme Allied Commander in NATO, Shea & Gardner; Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency, R. James Woolsey, Partner, Atlantic Council of the United States, Rozanne L. Ridgway, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada; Co-Chair, Harvard University, Marine Lieut. Gen. (ret.) Bernard E. Trainor, Lieutenant General, US Marine Corps, (Ret.); former Deputy to the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Director, National Security Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Patricia M. Derian, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Adviser, House of Representatives (D-Mass), Barney Frank, Member

Press/Panels

The U.S. and Iran are engaged in a "mutual game" to forestall any attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear installations, but at some point that game will begin to wear down, raising the prospect of military action, Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, tells WSJ's John Bussey an interview Tuesday.

Senator Webb urged his colleagues to heed the recent words of Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations: "When interventionists become avenging angels, they blind themselves and the nation and run dangerously amok. They plunge in with no plans, with half-baked plans, with demands to supply arms to rebels they know nothing about, with ideas for no-fly zones and bombing. Their good intentions could pave the road to hell for Syrians. Preserving lives today, but sacrificing many more later."